Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  At a light rap just then, he swung around to see Cavan Sheridan standing in the doorway, scrunching his cap against his chest and watching Jack.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I was wondering if I might leave now?”

  For a moment the youth’s request didn’t register.

  “ ’Tis Thursday, sir. I have the night class—”

  “Ah, yes,” Jack said, nodding. “Of course. That’s fine, lad. Go along to your Miss Harte.”

  “ ’Tis Mrs. Harte, sir. She is a widow.”

  Again Jack gave a nod, not really interested in the teacher Sheridan had so obviously enshrined. The lad clearly had himself a case of puppy love, but Jack suspected it would not really take much of a woman to turn the head of a gorsoon like his driver. The boy had a strange and uncommon admiration for knowledge and those who owned it. His Mrs. Harte might be squat and middle-aged with a row of warts hanging from her lip, but if she was even half the scholar Sheridan apparently believed her to be, no doubt she had the means to dazzle him.

  Jack’s mood had brightened somewhat, and he detained young Sheridan long enough to share the news about Brady. “I’ve heard from my brother at last,” he said, patting his coat pocket. “It seems he is alive and well after all.”

  Sheridan smiled and stepped into the room. “I’m glad for you, sir. You must be relieved.”

  “Yes, well, I’m relieved, all right, but no less annoyed with him for taking so long to let me know his whereabouts. Still, he’s had an idea for the paper that might help him wangle his way back into my good graces.” Jack paused. “And I expect he knows it.”

  Briefly, he explained Brady’s suggestion, then added, “Serializations seem to work nicely, if the reader cares enough about the subject.”

  He was surprised at Sheridan’s response. “And you think they will care enough?” he said quietly. “About Ireland?”

  Again Jack caught a glimpse of a certain cynicism in the lad that chanced to appear at odd moments, when least expected. “You disagree?” he asked, going to sit down at his desk.

  Sheridan shrugged. “I confess I’ve not seen much sign of any real interest in Ireland.” As if he sensed he might have overstepped, he added, “But it’s not for me to be saying, of course. You and Mr. Brady would know better what to expect from your readers.”

  Drumming his fingers on the desk, Jack shook his head. “Not necessarily. There’s no predicting human nature, Sheridan, at least not consistently. It’s folly for any man to think otherwise.”

  He studied the tall youth, who had filled out a bit on Mrs. Flynn’s cooking. Sheridan was anything but brawny, but he no longer had the hollow-eyed look of the starving immigrant about him. “What’s on your mind? You might just as well spit it out.”

  Of late, it wasn’t unusual for Jack to bounce an occasional idea off the lad. He had caught a glimpse every now and then of a fine mind, with exceptionally keen instincts. “But perhaps you need to be going—”

  “No, sir, I have time.” Sheridan hesitated only a second or two, and Jack had the impression he hadn’t far to search before forming his reply. “I agree with what you said, sir, about giving readers a subject they can care about.”

  Jack leaned back in his chair, waiting.

  “It’s just that…I’m not certain you can make them care about an entire country,” Sheridan went on. “At least not in a way that would be of any help to our people. To the Irish, that is,” he quickly amended, as if perhaps he shouldn’t be lumping Jack and himself together. Sheridan’s gaze held steady, but the way he continued to knead his wool cap with his hands told Jack the youth was not entirely comfortable with speaking freely.

  He moved to reassure him. “I never ask a man his opinion unless I want it, lad. Speak your mind.”

  Sheridan seemed to relax a little. “I was wondering if it might not be better to single out only a few individual stories, rather than try to give a broad view of the entire country. It might help to make the people seem more… real. If your readers could come to know the Irish as real people, on a more…personal basis, they might take the plight of Ireland itself more seriously. I think—”

  He stopped, watching Jack as if he might have said too much. But Jack’s interest was piqued now, and he gestured that Sheridan should go on.

  “What I’m trying to say is that it would seem a difficult job, at best, to interest the readers in something as big and impersonal as a country, but not so difficult perhaps to interest them in a young mother whose husband has died at sea and left her with two or three hungry tykes and no money to buy food or pay the rent.”

  Sheridan’s clear blue eyes began to sparkle as he continued. Something in Jack wrenched at the sight of this youthful enthusiasm, this excitement about something as simple and as fundamental as an idea. Had he ever been that young? he wondered almost sadly. That exuberant, that eager? Somehow it didn’t seem as though he had ever been a boy—carefree, idle, with the luxury of carving a whistle or daydreaming in the sun. He had worked from the time he was old enough to run messages and make collections.

  As a boy, his existence had been worry and hard work. As a young man, his existence had been less worry and more hard work. And now—well, nothing had changed much.

  But as Sheridan went on, Jack felt a quickening of his own senses, the familiar skip of his pulse that almost always signaled a worthwhile idea or, back in his gambling days, an unbeatable hand.

  “I’m not saying your brother’s idea isn’t a sound one, mind. Giving your readers a close-up view of Ireland and all her troubles—well, with Mr. Brady’s ability as an artist, no doubt a firsthand account of Ireland as he sees it will be fascinating. My idea is to add a bit more to it—to personalize it, if you will, perhaps choose four or five particularly desperate families or individuals, tell their stories—complete with Mr. Brady’s sketches, of course.” He stopped, his expression, even his tone, less confident as he added, “And then bring the subjects of those stories to America.”

  Jack’s head snapped up. “Bring them across?” he repeated incredulously. “All of them?”

  “Indeed, sir.” Sheridan said nothing more for a moment, but simply stood looking at Jack.

  “An expensive venture, I know, sir,” he finally said, his voice low, “but perhaps if you have the means it would eventually pay for itself. In terms of increased readership,” he hurried to explain, “not to mention the…ah…goodwill that would be sure to accrue to you for your generosity.”

  Jack looked at him in amazement, then quite suddenly threw back his head and laughed. It took him a moment to recover, and when he did he could still scarcely keep from laughing even harder. “Sheridan, I expect I ought to be grateful entirely that I didn’t hire you on as my bookkeeper. Hang it all, but you’re generous with my money!”

  Sheridan blushed but grinned at Jack. “Sorry, sir. It just seemed a good idea. I didn’t mean to presume—”

  Jack waved off his apology. “It is a good idea,” he said, his mind racing. “I must admit, I think you’re on to something. But if you’ll permit me an observation—this being your idea but my newspaper—it could take a bit of doing. Even if I’m willing to finance the crossing of several good Irish souls—and mind, I’m not committing to that particular madness just yet—but if I do, someone is going to have a bit of work on their hands, seeing to the arrangements and getting them settled after they arrive, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Sheridan nodded, his mind obviously working. “Mrs. Harte and some of her friends could help with that.”

  “Who?” Jack said, his own thoughts coursing ahead.

  “My teacher—Mrs. Harte. You recall my telling you that she works with the immigrant societies—”

  “Right, right,” Jack said, eager to spare himself further rhapsodizing on the part of his infatuated driver, who no doubt would have Mrs. Harte, too, spending the Vanguard’s money with unbridled enthusiasm if not held in check. “Well, perhaps that sort of thing can be taken care of ea
sily enough. But there’s the actual reporting—the developing of the stories, if you will. Seems to me it would take a clever fellow to carry off that sort of writing, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sheridan smiled a little. “Addy—Miss O’Meara—goes on and on about Mr. Brady, how clever and bright he is.”

  Jack shook his head. “Brady is good enough with getting the facts straight, and he can draw pictures that would make a saint weep. But that’s the rub. He’s an artist, not a writer. He could sniff out the stories and give us a good enough rough draft, but I’d have to hire a top-notch writer to whip them into shape.”

  His mind darting from one thing to another, he almost missed young Sheridan’s quiet reply.

  “I could do it, sir.”

  15

  KEY TO A DREAM

  A little love, a little trust,

  A soft impulse, a sudden dream,

  And life as dry as desert dust

  Is fresher than a mountain stream.

  STOPFORD A. BROOKE

  Kane looked up, clearly distracted. “What’s that?”

  Cavan expelled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and cleared his throat. “The writing. I could do it. I could write the stories from Mr. Brady’s material.”

  Kane’s black eyes raked him so thoroughly that Cavan’s skin tightened in self-defense. “I seem to recall your admitting a need for more education, if you’re to better yourself,” Kane said abruptly. “That’s the reason for the night classes, isn’t it?”

  Without giving Cavan a chance to reply, he added, “There is also the fact that I need you as my driver—which, you might recall, is the reason I hired you.” Kane’s expression was neutral, but Cavan knew Kane was testing him.

  “I would continue as your driver, sir,” Cavan hurried to assure him. “I could write the stories at night, after you no longer needed me, don’t you see?”

  Kane continued to study him. “What makes you think you can write, lad? Do you have some sort of experience you’ve kept to yourself?”

  Cavan ignored his lightly mocking tone. “No experience, sir. I’ve written only for myself up until now. But it’s something…I know I can do it, Mr. Kane. I wouldn’t have asked for a chance to try if I didn’t believe I could do it.”

  Kane lit a cigar. As he did so, his features drew into a hard, speculative expression that Cavan had come to recognize by now, a look that meant he was paying an idea careful consideration. There was nothing Cavan could do at the moment except to hold his tongue and wait in silence.

  He could almost feel the tension that crackled from his employer. The longer he worked for him, the more he had begun to understand the city’s love-hate fascination with Black Jack Kane. The man’s meteoric rise from poverty to riches, his outrageous but wildly successful business dealings, his deadly black-Irish charm and even deadlier Irish temper, and his enviable attraction of some of the most beautiful women on the eastern seaboard were the stuff that legends were made of.

  But Cavan had begun to question some of the more lurid tales so freely circulated by the gossipmongers. From what he could tell, Kane’s spectacular success was due more to the fact that he worked harder than any two men combined than to any sort of incredible luck or corrupt business practices. Though it was true that Kane demanded a great deal from his employees, he gave even more of himself; he appeared to never run out of energy. Yet he did not seem so much a driven man as one who truly enjoyed his work and went at it with a passion.

  As for his prowess with women, the tales of Kane’s endless love affairs were almost certainly exaggerated. Oh, the women couldn’t resist him, that much was true. Some of them made absolute fools of themselves over the man. But to the best of Cavan’s knowledge, his employer seldom involved himself in any sort of liaison more entangling than a dinner engagement at one of the city’s elegant restaurants or an evening at the theater—most often, the opera. He had never known Kane to bring a woman home, nor had he ever left him at a woman’s residence. While Jack Kane might spend a great number of evenings out on the town, he spent his nights at home. Alone.

  Cavan was beginning to suspect that at least a part of his employer’s charm with the ladies was in the way he managed to elude them.

  But as he faced him across the desk, he reminded himself that Kane had not attained the pinnacle on which he stood by being soft or careless. He was a hard man who, as Addy was fond of saying, “brooked no foolishness and suffered no fools.”

  He was also inclined to be impatient, so Cavan hurried to make his case. “I understand you’re probably wondering why you should consider such a suggestion on my part,” he said in as steady a voice as he could manage.

  Kane stood, crossing his arms over his chest, his dark eyes glinting with mild amusement. “I must admit the question had occurred to me, yes.”

  Cavan considered going into a long, detailed explanation as to why he thought himself qualified for such an undertaking, but the truth was that he wasn’t qualified, and both he and Kane knew it. So he took a deep breath and offered the only reply that seemed truthful. “My only experience is the writing I’ve done for myself. But you can trust me, sir. My grammar may not be expert just yet—” Kane lifted one dark brow in a wry expression as Cavan pressed on—“but Mrs. Harte is helping me a great deal, and she says I’m the best scholar she’s ever taught. Besides, wouldn’t one of the proofreaders be correcting me if I trip up too badly?”

  Kane twisted his mouth downward. “I have only two proofreaders I can trust,” he said. “My front-page reader, Hailey, can no longer see well enough to be of any real value. And Jimmy Kidder is set to retire come fall.”

  Something went off in Cavan’s mind, but for the moment he kept his silence.

  “You meant what you said that day, didn’t you, Sheridan?” Kane asked abruptly.

  Cavan frowned. “Sir?”

  “The day I hired you on as my driver, you admitted that what you really wanted was to work for the newspaper.”

  Cavan did, of course, remember. “Aye, I meant it, sir.” He held Kane’s gaze. “I still do.”

  Jack Kane dropped his arms away from his chest and put his hands in his pockets. For a long time he made no reply but simply stood there, regarding Cavan in an unhurried, speculative manner.

  Cavan felt his hands turn clammy with perspiration. Even though Kane kept the study reasonably cool compared to the rest of the house, he could feel the heat rising up the back of his neck.

  “All right, then. Why not?” Kane flung out, his tone surprisingly casual. “An old gambler like myself can’t resist taking a chance now and then. Here’s what we’ll do, Sheridan,” he went on in a clipped, precise voice. “I will write to my brother and explain your idea, ask him to design his copy in such a way that he focuses on only a few specific people—and on highly interesting ones, at that.”

  Cavan had all he could do to suppress a shout of excitement. Instead, he balled his hands into such tight fists at his sides that he feared he might draw blood.

  “When Brady’s first post comes,” Kane went on matter-of-factly, “you will make it into a story so compelling it will seize the city by the throat, sizably increasing the Vanguard’s subscription list—” he paused, his tone again turning sardonic—“and at the same time making you the most sought-after reporter in the state of New York.” The dark eyebrows quirked. “You will, of course, remain wholly loyal to me, in spite of your newfound fame.”

  As Kane finished, a quick, challenging grin broke over his face.

  Cavan didn’t quite manage an answering smile. “Of course, sir.” He swallowed hard. “You mean it, then—that you will let me try my hand at the stories?”

  Below the black mustache, Kane’s mouth thinned slightly. “I mean that I will give you a chance, but only if you do not slack off in your responsibilities as my driver. And if your aspirations to be a reporter are genuine, you will familiarize yourself with the Vanguard’s operations from the ground up. You will learn the
presses and even a bit about keeping books—though only if you vow to control your penchant for spending my money. And you will get to know the newsboys and their trade.”

  Cavan nodded, scarcely able to contain his excitement. Perhaps Kane thought he was demanding much of Cavan, when in truth the man was handing him the key to a dream.

  “One more thing,” Kane went on. “You will do your writing on your own time, not mine. And if I decide your effort is lacking and not up to the Vanguard’s standards, you will accept my opinion as final in the matter. Oh, and Sheridan—you will lose most of your Irish brogue, at least enough that it doesn’t destroy your credibility as a writer. Understood?”

  Cavan never wavered as he looked his employer in the eye. “Understood, sir.”

  Another slow grin broke over Kane’s dark features as he chomped on his cigar. “Do you know, Sheridan, you sometimes remind me a bit of myself at your age?”

  Now Cavan did manage a smile, but in truth he wasn’t at all sure whether he had just been saluted or insulted. He braced himself, wondering how far he dared press. “Mr. Kane? Do I understand that you’re thinking of hiring a new proofreader for the paper?”

  Kane nodded, his smile giving way to a frown. “I can’t think what else to do. I’ll not be kicking old Hailey out, of course. He has to eat, and no one else is likely to hire him, the shape he’s in. I expect I can find another place for him somewhere downstairs.”

  “I thought I would mention a possibility as a replacement,” Cavan ventured carefully, “if you’re interested, that is.”

  “And that would be…?”